Yo La Tengo

[SONIC HONORED CITIZENS] After nearly 30 years, you know what to expect from Yo La Tengo. Strange, perhaps, that a willfully eccentric act so inclined to traverse the outer reaches of a rangy muse should end up beloved for a redoubtable consistency. If the band's career has ever lacked for Zeitgeist-scaling peaks, the Hoboken, N.J., trio has blessedly avoided the hollows miring just about every other group. While Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley may never have won their Simpsons moment, they are notably still together and still capable of manufacturing sui generis pastoral noise at turns epic and intimate. The recently released 13th full-length, Fade—helmed by Tortoise's John McEntire after two decades with Roger Moutenot as producer—seems of a piece with the group's relative ’90s heyday, though some folkier tendencies may have inspired this tour's sharply divided sets: restrained subtleties, then blistering feedback, then lengthy encore of crowd-suggested covers. Realistically speaking, Yo La Tengo can't possibly continue with this level of achievement forever. But if the new album's title and unusually direct lyrics hint toward an eventual close, the definitive indie band knows something about extended outros.